Good, Bad, Smart, and Stupid
by Spartangal22
Summary: Molly is good, and, contrary to popular belief, good does not mean stupid. Sherlock is smart, but smart does not mean good. Greg Lestrade is worried, and shares his concerns with Molly. Set before the series, after the first meeting of Molly and Sherlock.


"Cocaine."

Molly started. Whirling around, she saw Greg Lestrade leaning against the doorframe. He rubbed his temples, sighing, and even though he stood in the shadows Molly could make out the large bags underneath his eyes.

"Sorry?" She asked.

"Cocaine," he reported, pushing himself out of the doorway and nodding his head towards the hall. She hesitated, glancing around her empty lab. There were few people left in the hospital this time of night. She tended to work late; her roommate was out and married and she grew bored quickly in her empty flat. Still, there were pipettes left out, slides that needed to be put away, and she wasn't done with her report for the night. It wasn't needed until mid-week, but Lucy Johnson had stopped by again that morning, her eyes red and puffy, her red hair clinging to her tear-stained cheeks, to ask whether her son had been killed or had killed himself, and Molly had had to tell her that the results were inconclusive, even though they weren't, because she needed her higher-ups to sign off on anything before she made any definitive statements, and the sooner she finished her report the soon the signatures could come and the sooner Mrs. Johnson would have her answers. Molly didn't know which fate she preferred for her son, but Derek Johnson had indeed been murdered.

Greg watched her carefully. "Just a cup of coffee, Molly. God knows we could both use some at this point." He rolled his eyes and started down the hall, leaving Molly little choice but to follow him. She quickened her pace to match his.

"What were you talking about before? Cocaine?" She asked. Greg looked sideways at her.

"I met him on a drugs bust, Molly. He's working with me to keep it off his record; another mark and he gets sent back to rehab."

Molly blinked. She looked straight ahead, adding this new bit of information to the file she was compiling about the strange man she'd met only minutes before. "Oh. Well. We all have our faults."

"The first stint in rehab was for heroin," Greg said bluntly. That was something she appreciated about the officer. He was direct. He didn't sugarcoat things. Unlike most people in her life, he treated her as a competent human being.

She remembered the moment she realized that people thought she was dim. She was meeting up with some girlfriends from university, just a yearly coffee, the one where they laughed about "the old days" and swore they'd keep in touch better this next year. Ginger was getting married, and was complaining about her fiancé's bachelor party. He assured her it wasn't to a strip club. Ginger was convinced it was a strip club.

"He says it's not," Molly had said, slightly tipsy. "Trust him, Gigi! You're going to marry the man; you've got to trust him."

The girls had shared a knowing look. "Oh, Molly. I wish I could be so naïve."

"You're adorable, Molly," someone added. "Never change."

Never mind the four years at university, the one they had all attended together. Forget about the two years at medical school, where she'd had to choose between her friends and sleep, and had tended towards the latter. Those four years of hell that were her residency? Irrelevant, apparently. _Trusting,_ she learned, was the new _naïve. Nice_ the new _dumb._

She couldn't help being optimistic. Her life was death. She stared at naked, dead people all day. Her job was to determine how people died. It could get depressing, if she let it. She knew plenty of pathologists who went home and popped pills. Pathologists produced facts. Facts were emotionless, unattached, rational. Some pathologists covered the bodies faces, unless they were relevant to the case at hand, or didn't refer to them by name, just their case number. Molly did neither. She looked at all her patients – not corpses patients – and learned their names and talked to their families, if they wanted her to. And she went beyond that. She created their lives. The man who swallowed rat poison? He'd been an aspiring writer, and he liked the beach. The old woman on the slab? Her most recent grandchild was named after her. And the young man with the wild dark curls and pale skin who'd stomped around her lab and demanded body parts he had no right to? He was a misunderstood genius with a troubled past. That apparently involved drugs.

Greg kept talking. "Heroin, cocaine, a little pot. He's a smoker, too."

"So are you," Molly said defensively, irrationally sticking up for a man she didn't know. Greg sighed, running a hand through his graying hair. "Sorry," she said.

They walked into the kitchen. There were a few doctors chatting in the corner; she recognized one. He'd asked her out a few weeks ago and she'd turned him down, and he'd ignored her in the halls every day since. Doctors were snobs.

Greg poured himself some coffee, then handed her a cup. She drank hers black; he poured ample amounts of cream into his. They took a seat far from the doctors. The TV was on low; just the BBC. The announcer was talking about the most recent crime reports, including a serial strangler catching people in alleyways in London in the early hours of the morning.

Greg frowned at the screen. "It's not a serial killer," he muttered. "They're copycat attacks. The first was a crime of passion, but the rest are just trying to take care of their own issues and frame the first guy." He shook his head.

"How do you know that?" Molly asked.

Greg offered her half a smile. "Because Sherlock Holmes said so."

"And that means something?" She tried to keep her voice casual. Did she sound casual? Was it obvious that she wanted to sound casual?

Why was she so curious about this man?

"That means everything," Greg said. He took a long drink of coffee.

"Is he a detective too?" Molly said. She was surprised by Greg's reaction. He laughed. Loudly.

He cleared his throat and stopped abruptly when he saw her face. "Geez, I'm sorry, Molly," he said. "Sherlock Holmes wouldn't dare demean himself by becoming a detective, although he'd be a bloody good one. He's just a drug addict who happens to be the most brilliant man in all of London. All of England, most likely."

"That seems contradictory," she pressed. "Smart people don't generally do drugs."

"Smart people don't," Greg agreed. "Brilliant people bored with the world do." He paused. "It's a damn shame."

"What's he do, then?" She said. She looked back over her shoulder at the TV, as if that was what she was really interested in, not the tall, pale, and fast-talking not-a-detective.

"Hell if I know," Greg said with a shrug. "He tells me all the obvious things I miss, tells me that I'm an idiot and all my staffers are idiots. Doesn't say a word about himself, or ask a thing about me. He probably doesn't even know my first name."

Molly took a long drink of her coffee, avoiding Greg's eyes. _Attractive. Smart. Self-centered. Eccentric._ "Is he going to be helping you out often?"

Greg set his empty cup down slowly, his gaze never leaving her. "Yes," he said slowly. "I think he likes doing it. He likes showing off, he likes beating people, and this lets him do both. He'll probably be stopping by the hospital every now and then."

Molly's heart leapt. Irrationally. Without cause. Greg noticed. "He's an addict, Molly," he said softly.

"You've said that-"

"Not to the drugs. To danger. He craves mental stimulation – needs it constantly. He can't sit still, he can't get _bored_. He's not normal, Molly. I like that he's not, but he's not. And he's not a good person." His eyes bored into hers and she blushed and ducked her head.

"That's awfully blunt," she muttered.

"It's not a decision he makes. It's just how his mind works – he is so focused on the next challenge, the next _hit_…He doesn't care how he gets it. And he doesn't care what it is. He just wants it. Do you see what I'm getting at?" He didn't wait for a response, growling in frustration. "He doesn't see things as _good _and _bad_. He sees them as _smart_ and _stupid_. And bad can be smart, and good can be stupid, and he only values the smart."

For one horrible second, Molly wondered if Greg was telling her she was too dumb for Sherlock Holmes. She pushed that thought aside quickly, though. She wasn't dumb. She knew that. She was nice. She was good. And nice and good people could still be smart. She had the diplomas and the job to prove it.

"You don't think I should be friendly with Sherlock Holmes?" She asked quietly.

He nodded. "You're the kind of person Sherlock Holmes will never understand, and he doesn't like not understanding things."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Molly wasn't very complicated. Just ask Ginger and the girls.

"You are contradictions," Greg said earnestly, leaning forward. "Your job is death and you're happy and full of life. You work with doctors who stick their noses up and carry their diplomas with them, and you're smarter than any of them and never try to prove. You never _have_ to prove it. You're kind in a world that's increasingly awful. You're a _good_ person. You deserve a _good_ person. Sherlock Holmes, for all the things he is, will never be that. And if he ever insulted you or hurt you, I'm afraid I'd have to kill him, and I'd hate to lose his expertise."

Molly felt tears well up as Greg finished talking. As she looked at him, she saw another face, a face she hadn't seen in many years, a face that had been weathered by illness and age, and she heard the last words her father had ever said to her: _You're a good person, Molly, my girl. You deserve the best_.

"I have to finish my work," she said quietly. She blinked the tears away.

"You'll think about it?" He looked at her seriously, concern etched into his brow, and somewhere in the plethora of emotions Molly felt at that moment was embarrassment that her infatuation with Sherlock Holmes was so obvious.

"Yes," she said. "Thank you." She stood and started away, but stopped as she passed him to bend over and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Back in her lap, Molly was unable to concentrate on Derek Johnson's report. She felt bad; his mother would have to wait another dead. _But he'll still be dead_, she admitted, just like any other pathologist would. She stopped in the process of shutting off her computer and opened the report again. She would finish the report. For Lucy Johnson. That was the right thing to do.

Typing facts was easy and her mind wandered. She told Greg she'd think about what he said, and she did. She started creating the story of Sherlock Holmes. It was a strange experience, creating the story of a person who was still alive. Sherlock Holmes came from a loving home, she decided, with parents who had encouraged his genius and perhaps an older brother he competed against. She took what Greg said about the drugs into account and decided he'd had a rough few years at the university, where he'd discovered that even the smartest in the country couldn't challenge him. Perhaps he'd picked up a sport or two to try to foster the competition he so desperately craved, but in the end he always turned back to the drugs. But Greg was wrong about Sherlock not being a good person, she decided. It wasn't just wishful thinking that led her to that conclusion, though there was plenty of that. No, Sherlock Holmes had to be a good person, because Greg Lestrade was a good person, and a smart one, and he wouldn't work without anyone less.

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><p><strong>I own nothing. <strong>


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